MAC Meeting: County Climate Action Plan Discussed

The Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) heard a presentation from the County regarding climate change and safety at their Monday night meeting.

The Safety Element and Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP) is part of the County’s General Plan, which is in the middle of a comprehensive update expected to be completed in December 2023 for approval by the Board of Supervisors.

The current Safety Element addresses issues including earthquakes, fire, and flood hazards. In order to comply with 2016’s State Senate Bill 379, the new update must also include climate adaptation and resilience.

Other recent legislation requires that the County update the Safety Element to address the risk of fire on lands classified as state responsibility areas or high fire hazard zones and emergency evacuation routes.

Among the strategies proposed in the CCAP: a transition to 100 percent clean energy, an increase in access/ incentivization of residential renewable energy such as solar panels, increased availability of local jobs and affordable housing to reduce commutes, reduction of single-use plastics, and more urban green spaces.

For updates on the plan or to offer feedback on the project, visit the county website: https://alamedacounty.consider.it/

Also, at Monday’s meeting, the MAC continued an application for a conditional use permit to operate a T-Mobile cell phone tower.

The applicants have been running a telecommunication facility at 4169 High Ridge Place, but a long-term permit expired last year.

The site has been approved for a cell tower since 1997, and T-Mobile has received various permits since then. One was valid for ten years, from 2002 to 2012, and another that expired in 2022.  AT&T also operates a wireless communication facility on the same site.

This time around, T-Mobile proposed a set of changes to the facility which would increase the number of antennas from three to six and the construction of two smaller equipment enclosures to replace one larger one. The height of the facility would also increase from 14 feet to 18 feet.

Because the conditional use permit expired, the application had to go back before the County’s Planning Department for review, and they ultimately did recommend approval, but the MAC continued the item, and the permit will be discussed at a future meeting.